Solon and the Rhetoric of Philosophy in Plato’s Dialogues
In this paper, I argue that direct mention of Solon in Plato’s dialogues plays on the
prominence of Solon’s name in fourth century Athens to improve the public perception of
philosophy. We can see in the Old Comedy of Aristophanes how intellectual figures—whether
sophistic figures such as Socrates or even overly clever tragedians such as Euripides—arouse
mistrust. This bias against intellectuals continued well after Socrates’ death. Aeschines, for
example, claims that the Athenians executed Socrates “the sophist” for being Critias’ teacher
(Against Timarchus 1.173). Therefore, Plato and other fourth century intellectuals must
overcome this bias and present philosophy as something particularly useful to the polis
(Nightingale 2004: 232). Aligning it with the most revered of Athenian lawgivers allows Plato to
make philosophy more appealing.
By the fourth century, Solon had become as legendary as he was historical, a stock name
to which orators could refer in order to justify their motives and legitimate what was “ancestral”
to the Athenian constitution. Hansen (1991) claims that “most Athenians in Demosthenes’ time
no doubt genuinely believed their democracy went back to Solon” (299). Indeed Isocrates, in the
Areopagiticus, tells the Athenians that “the only way to rescue ourselves from our present evils
and head off future dangers is if we are willing to restore the democracy instituted by Solon, who
was the most demotic of legislators, and re-established by Cleisthenes, who drove out the tyrants
and led the people back to power” (7.16, trans. Finley). Isocrates reduces the man whom we
generally credit today as the founder of Athenian democracy to simply its restorer. Furthermore,
Aeschines, while drawing on the public perception of Socrates as an educator of tyrants to
belittle his opponents Timarchus and Demosthenes, places Solon in opposition to these men as a
paradigm of morality (Against Timarchus 1.25-26). Plato acknowledges this reputation when his
characters mention Solon as a model legislator in several dialogues (Republic, Symposium,
Phaedrus, Laws, Timaeus). Republic X seems to credit Solon directly for the Athenian
constitution: “Which city says that you,” Socrates imagines asking Homer, “are its greatest
lawgiver, or attributes its success to you? Italy and Sicily say it is Charondas. We say it is
Solon.” (599e, trans. Griffith). While making no comment of his own on Solon, Socrates at least
recognizes that other Athenians considered Solon their greatest legislator.
But Solon appears as more than just a legislator in Plato’s corpus. Various characters in
the dialogues also mention Solon as a sage and a poet (Morrow 1993: 80). Socrates, for example,
mentions Solon and the other Sages as early philosophers in the Protagoras (343a), and Critias
claims Solon, had he written his epic on Atlantis, would have surpassed Homer and Hesiod in his
renown as a poet (21c-d). Plato thus draws upon several aspects of the Solonian tradition, and he
presents philosophy as its inheritor. Furthermore, the Charmides, Timaeus, and Critias all point
out Solon’s kinship with the family of Critias, of whom Plato is also a kinsman. Though Plato
does not, and perhaps cannot, distance himself from his familial relationship to Critias and
Charmides, he can nonetheless draw upon his kinship with Solon: when Socrates acknowledges
the gifts of poetry and philosophy in Critias’ family through his relationship to Solon (Charmides
155a), Platonic philosophy itself is presented as a descendent of Solonian wisdom.
Works cited:
Finley, M.I. (1987) The Use and Abuse of History. Penguin.
Hansen, M.H. (1991) The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes. Blackwell.
Morrow, G. R. (1960/1993) Plato’s Cretan City. Princeton.
Nightingale, A.W. (2004) Spectacles of Truth in Classical Greek Philosophy. Cambridge.